refactor(settings): extract readEffectiveConfiguration() — clears the last phpmd finding

[rubenvdlinde]

Context

Follow-up to #722. That PR cleared AiService TooManyPublicMethods, which was the only phpmd finding at the time. Re-measuring on the merged development (773a8bfc4) turned up a different single finding, introduced by #721 while #722 was open:

lib/Service/SettingsService.php:531  ExcessiveMethodLength
The method loadConfiguration() has 102 lines of code. Current threshold is set to 100.

#721 replaced the +frag.<md5> version suffix with a long explanatory comment, which pushed the method 2 lines over. This PR clears it, so phpmd on development reaches 0 findings.

How

loadConfiguration() was doing two jobs:

1. resolve the effective register configuration — read procest_register.json, parse it, deep-merge the ADR-037 register.d/*.json fragments
2. import it via OpenRegister's ConfigurationService

Job 1 moves into a private readEffectiveConfiguration() returning ['data' => …] on success or ['error' => …] carrying the caller-facing failure shape. loadConfiguration() stays a single import flow instead of also being a file reader.

Behaviour is unchanged — the same two failure shapes (Configuration file not found, Invalid JSON in configuration file) are returned to the caller in the same order, with the same log calls.

Test gap this exposed

The extracted path had no test at all. The only loadConfiguration test covers the OpenRegister-unavailable early return — which returns before any of the read/parse/merge code runs. So the whole path could have been broken (wrong file, unparsed JSON, fragments silently dropped) with the suite still green.

Added a test that drives loadConfiguration() through to importFromApp() and asserts it receives:

• the on-disk info.version from procest_register.json
• parsed content (an array carrying info), not a raw string or an empty array
• a version with no + build suffix — the refactor(settings): stop folding a fragment digest into the import version #721 invariant, since OpenRegister's version_compare gate compares such suffixes lexically

Mutation-checked: making readEffectiveConfiguration() return an empty config turns it red (0.13.2 → 0.0.0).

Verification

Worktree pinned to origin/development @ 773a8bfc4, phpmd over 597 files in lib/, PHP 8.4 container (host PHP is 8.2 and dies in platform_check.php with exit 255, which greps as a clean run).

	before	after
phpmd	exit 2, 1 finding	exit 0, 0 findings
positive control (injected probe)	exit 2, 3 probe findings	exit 2, 3 probe findings

Findings were matched on the path:line Rule message shape — phpmd also emits 13 Deprecated: PDepend\... lines naming rule classes, and a rule-name grep would manufacture phantom hits from those.

composer check:strict, real exit codes:

step	before	after
lint	0	0
phpcs	0	0
phpmd	2	0
psalm	0	0
phpstan	0	0
phpunit	0 — 1691 tests, 5649 assertions	0 — 1692 tests, 5659 assertions

PHPUnit was run under Xdebug on purpose

phpunit.xml sets beStrictAboutCoverageMetadata="true" + failOnRisky="true". That check is completely inert without a coverage driver — on #722 it caught nothing locally and then failed all 4 CI legs with 7 risky tests. PCOV does not drive it either; CI uses Xdebug. Running under Xdebug here flagged a missing @uses RegisterFragmentMerger immediately, before pushing.

Not done

• No @SuppressWarnings, @psalm-suppress, phpcs:ignore, phpstan-ignore, markTestSkipped or .skip( added
• No baseline file created
• phpmd.xml, phpcs.xml, psalm.xml, phpstan.neon, phpunit.xml, composer.json untouched — the threshold stays at 100

[github-actions]

Quality Report — ConductionNL/procest @ 8f108ce

Check	PHP	Vue	Security	License	Tests
lint	✅
phpcs	✅
phpmd	✅
psalm	✅
phpstan	✅
phpmetrics	✅
eslint		✅
stylelint		✅
build		✅
composer			✅	✅ 100/100
npm			✅	✅ 550/550
PHPUnit					✅
Newman					⏭️
Playwright					✅

---

Quality workflow — 2026-08-04 10:24 UTC

Download the full PDF report from the workflow artifacts.

[rubenvdlinde]

Merging. This takes procest from red to fully green — measured at job level, not from the rollup:

job	development	this PR
PHP Quality (phpmd)	failure	success
Quality Report	failure	success
PHPUnit ×4 legs	success	success
total	29 jobs, 2 failing	29 jobs, 0 failing

phpmd had been procest's only blocker for the whole session — a single finding, with Quality Report red purely because phpmd was. +159/−40 across 2 files clears it.

Worth noting the seam chosen here is not the one I suggested. I proposed extracting the three audit methods out of AiService; this extracts readEffectiveConfiguration() instead. The measured result is what matters, and it is green — including all four PHPUnit legs, so the refactor is behaviour-preserving where it counts.

No suppression, no baseline, no threshold change — the finding is cleared, not silenced.